


The Many Stories of Mathin Sedrethi

by Zalphon



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls I: Arena, Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls Online, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:00:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21777928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zalphon/pseuds/Zalphon
Summary: An old friend of a late fishermen shares the stories of her lost friend and recollects on their relationship.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	The Many Stories of Mathin Sedrethi

**The Many Stories of Mathin Sedrethi**

_By Birama Delvi, Friend of Mathin Sedrethi_

They say that there are moments in a person’s life where their path forks and their destiny is forever changed and I can say that this is true, because I am fortunate enough to recognize one of those moments in my own life: the day I met the old fisherman who called himself Mathin Sedrethi. He was older than me, a lot older—his face was hollow and his eyes sunken, but he still sat on that pier every day with his rod and reeled in fish after fish only to toss them back except for the one or two that would be his meal that day. He was a strange man—stranger than anyone I had ever met before and maybe that’s why I always avoided him at first. He didn’t talk much—to anyone, really—and I don’t think anyone much minded that he kept to himself as much as he did. I certainly didn’t. He was an eccentric old man and I had much better things to do with my time than waste it on him—such as the Armorer’s apprentice, a boy with eyes redder than rubies and a tongue of the finest silver.

I spent so much time chasing that boy, wanting nothing more than his attention and affections, even though I never got it. He was always chasing after the Lord-Governor’s youngest daughter and she was not one to scorn his advances, after all, he was both he most handsome and charming boy in our village. But one day, one day I worked up the courage to share with him my feelings and despite all the charm he put off, he showed his true colors that day. He laughed at the notion that I thought I could ever be with someone like him. He laughed a laugh like the cackle of a hyena and I stood there stunned at his cruelty; I was in love with him and he—he thought I was a joke for even thinking I had a chance with him. I remember running even though I couldn’t see through my tears and I remember crashing into that eccentric old man. He just looked at me real carefully and set down his rod and asked me to take a seat with him and for some reason, I did. Maybe it was the crushing loneliness of the rejection or maybe I saw something in this old man for the first time, but I don’t know and I don’t think it really matters why I sat down with him to be honest, just that I did. 

We talked well into the night as the moon made its way across the sky and the sun began to cast out the night. He told me stories of the woman he once loved so long ago and we shared in each other’s sadness, but by the time the sun rose, I felt better and for the first time, I saw him smile. It was a weak smile across those thin lips, but it was a smile all the same, and he said to me, “Little girl, never lose your light. Not for any boy, not for any cause, not for any reason—never lose your light.” I didn’t much understand that at the time and I wouldn’t for a very long time after either but I can say that that conversation was the first of many between me and that old man. 

I would go sit on the pier with him every day after my chores were done and until I had to come home for bed and we would talk and he would tell me stories of his life. Some were big. Some were small. But all of them had a special magic about them that I can’t quite explain, like when he told me the story of how he caught a slaughterfish when he was a quite a few years younger than me and how he didn’t know that a slaughterfish’s fins have sharp cartilage that can cut you just as bad as their teeth can. He told me how the cut on his hand left him unable to fish for a week and a half and how he swore his mother was on the brink of madness by the end of that week and a half because he wouldn’t stop talking about how much he missed the tug and pull of a good fish on the line. 

There was another story about how when he was in the Navy and his ship went to port in the Summerset Isles and he actually got lost in an illusionary castle for three days until the Ship’s Mage dispelled it. He always had a funny way of telling that story though. “Damned mage ruined the best vacation of my career. How many people can say they got to live in a castle like a king even though they were just a bosun like me?” That was the thing about Mathin, he always saw a bright side to things that most people couldn’t. Most people would’ve been traumatized from being victim to a rogue mage’s illusions, but Mathin always told that story so fondly just like he told his story about the day he met his wife.

He was a young man at that point, out of the Navy, but still young. He described her as the kind of woman you never really see in real life, you only hear about them in stories because they’re just too beautiful to be real, but she was. He would tell me how he walked up to her with all the confidence in the world only to get tongue-tied the moment he opened his mouth, but luckily for him, she found it charming that he was so head-over-heels that he couldn’t even talk. He said she was so amused by his stuttering and gobbled words that she put a finger up to his lips and, I quote verbatim, “Told me to stop trying so damn hard and just to join her for dinner later at one of the restaurants in town.” He said that dinner was the best of his life despite the waiter being, and I quote again verbatim, “An absolute s’wit and the food being worse than guar dung.” But, he was with the woman he knew he’d marry one day and that made it the best meal of his life. He even told me that once he got home that night, he thanked Azura for giving him the opportunity to meet this wonderful woman. 

He’d talk a lot about his life with her. He’d tell me stories about how he’d write her poems that didn’t quite rhyme or have any meter, but, he did his best to make them sound good because she was the kind of woman who deserved a thousand poems written about her and he’d tell me how she’d blush when he’d get to talking about her with his friends. “She’d turned darker than ebony, Birama, because she never thought she deserved to have all the things I said about her said.”

He also talked about the family they started together. About his son who grew to be, as Mathin always said, “Ten times the man I’ll ever be.” He told me all kinds of stories about his son who was always off in the hills just like he was always out fishing and how his son eventually set off west to High Rock for new adventures and new stories. He’d always say, “The only thing that irks me more than him running off all willy-nilly on adventures is that I know he got it from me.” Sure, Mathin complained a lot about his son running on adventures, but he always talked about his son with such pride. He’d tell me stories about the time his son came home dragging a dead nix-hound behind him and how when he was younger, he’d always be out chasing those damned scribs even though he kept getting bit by them when he wouldn’t leave them alone. 

And there were stories about his daughter to. He’d tell me all about how she was just the sweetest thing to come into his life since he met her mother and how his biggest regret was that they didn’t talk as much anymore. He never quite went into why they didn’t talk so much anymore, but he kept one of her drawings from when she was a small child in his humble little shack and he told me that he loved that drawing more than he loved his fishing rod or anything else he ever owned. The drawing was of their family with each of them labeled: “Mommy, Daddy, Fanasa, and Bolyn”. Somehow though, I knew that old drawing caused him a lot of pain over the years—but I still think it reminded him of better days. It reminded him of when he had something—when he had—a family.

It wasn’t until not long before he died that he told me the story of what happened to his wife and why his daughter wouldn’t speak to him anymore. She got sick—the kind of sick that magic couldn’t fix—Corprus. I know you probably don’t know what that is given it was eradicated so long ago, but he watcher her slowly mutate into a monster and he cried. He cried as he watched the tumors grow on her and as she laid in that bed moaning in agony all day and all night, as his children were wept at the sound of their mother’s misery. He watched the woman he loved and the woman he created a family descend into madness caused by the pain of the disease and he knew what he had to do—and he did it. And he always used to say, “She was the lucky one the day she died—for her, it was all over after that—me? I had to keep going on without her.”

He cried when he told me that story and he told me I was the only person he had ever told it to, because I was his only friend and had been for all these years. 

I remember sitting beside him as he laid on his deathbed. He was old and his time was nearing and the sickness he had contracted would see to it that he would finally be released from the confines of this world. His fever was spiking and I remember his last words through the delirium. “Fanasa? You’ve finally come back—you’re all grown up now and you’re so, so, beautiful. I can’t believe you’re here.” He was crying and laughing at the same time, tears of joy streaming down his face. He couldn’t believe it—his daughter had finally returned to him—only she hadn’t; it was only me, but I didn’t dare take away his last moments of joy from him as he embraced me in a hug tighter than I thought he was capable of.

“You have to meet my friend, Birama,” he said to me. “You’ll love her, Fanasa—she reminds me so much of you. She’ll be by today, she told me and she’s not a liar, Fanasa. You’ll love her!”

And I sat with him knowing that this would be our last time speaking and we spoke for hours. We spoke about everything and he told me all of his stories, one last time, and when he had spoken so much he couldn’t stay awake much longer, I kissed his forehead and told him that I loved him and that he was a great father and that I was so glad I came to see him. He cried even more at that and hugged me, one last time, and when he let go—he was gone. I sat with that eccentric old fisherman as he fell back into his bed and let out his last breath and I cried over him. He had changed my life so much and I loved him so much and I suppose I was sad to know he was gone, but wherever he is, I hope he knows that even if it wasn’t Fanasa sitting by his side as he passed from this life to the next—his daughter was. Maybe not the daughter he thought or maybe not the daughter he sired, but his daughter all the same was with him as he spent his final hours and that she’ll always be grateful for having known him, because he was the best friend she ever could’ve asked for.

And now I sit here in my little shack, looking at your fishing rod and smiling. You really did change my life, Mathin, and I hope you know that even now that I am old and my life nears its end, I still haven’t forgotten you. I’ll never forget you or your stories and neither will my children or my grandchildren who all grew up hearing the stories of Mathin Sedrethi, the best friend I ever had.

_-Birama Delvi, Friend of Mathin Sedrethi_


End file.
